After serving in the infantry in World War I, Stryker went to Columbia University where he studied economics. He used his photography to illustrate his economics texts and lectures. At Columbia, he worked with Rexford Tugwell, and when Tugwell became part of the Resettlement Administration, Stryker followed him. Tugwell and Stryker refocused the attention of the Resettlement Administration to document the problems of the heartland, and in 1935 Stryker became the head of the Historical Section (Information Division) of the RA. The RA was renominated the Farm Security Administration, and Stryker set up the photodocumentary project.

Stryker's greatest contribution to the FSA's photographic project was as a manager. The photographers involved attested to the fact that Stryker was expert at getting good work out of them. He made sure that the photographers were well briefed on their assigned areas before being sent out, and he ensured that they were properly funded. Stryker also made sure that mainstream publications had access to FSA photographs. This both helped focus public attention on the plight of the rural poor and set up the commercial careers of his photographers. Overall, from 164,000 developed negatives some 77,000 different finished photographic prints were made for the press, plus 644 color images.

During World War II, the photographic unit of the FSA was reassigned to the Office of War Information and put to more propagandistic uses for one year, and then disbanded. At the same time, the US Congress disbanded the FSA, and the holdings of the FSA's photographic unit were transferred to the Library of Congress.

Stryker resigned and went to work for Standard Oil in its public relations documentary project from 1943 to 1950. In selecting photographers for projects at Standard Oil (SO), Stryker sought those who possessed an "insatiable curiosity, the kind that can get to the core of an assignment, the kind that can comprehend what a truck driver, or a farmer, or a driller or a housewife thinks and feels and translate those thoughts and feelings into pictures that can be similarly comprehended by anyone."